WebMD’s Financials
But, despite the concern, online health information provider, WebMD (NASDAQ: WBMD) continued to see phenomenal growth in the quarter. The company’s Q4 revenues grew 22% over the year to $168.5 million and exceeded the Street’s projected revenues of $166.3 million. EPS of $0.47 was also ahead of the market expectations of $0.44.

Revenues from public portal advertising and sponsorship grew 28% to $147 million. Private portal service revenues fell from $23.2 million last year to $21.4 million. Among other statistics, traffic to the WebMD Health Network grew 38% to an average of 86.4 million unique visitors per month. The number of page views during the quarter grew 22% over the year to 1.8 billion.

For the year, revenues grew 22% to $534.5 million and EPS fell from $2.07 to $0.88. For the current year, WebMD projects revenues of $610 million–$640 million with EPS of $1.22–$1.40. Analysts were expecting WebMD’s revenues for the year to be $630.8 million with EPS of $1.25. For the current quarter, the company projects revenues to be more than $125 million compared with the Street’s projections of $128.3 million.

It is not just health care providers, but their patients who are turning to the mobile apps. Healthagen’s iTriage has information on symptoms, diseases, and medical procedures. The app is also a directory of nationwide hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies. It helps users search for and gives them turn-by-turn directions to the nearest choice among its database of over 750,000 physicians or 350 specialty clinics.

WebMD is also not far behind in its mobile initiatives. The WebMD Mobile app includes a Symptom Checker; lists first aid essentials; gives information on drugs, supplements, and vitamins; helps identify pills by color, shape, and imprint; and can be used to map and search for a nearest healthcare provider. But it is their Medscape app that has received rave reviews.

The Medscape app was recently named the most downloaded free medical app of the year for iPhone by Apple on its iTunes Rewind 2010 featured list of Apps. The app provides a comprehensive reference on more than 6,000 drugs, 3,500 diseases, 600 procedures and 80 tables and protocols; gives daily medical news and alerts; and is part of WebMD’s Continuing Medical Education activities. The company recently expanded the reach of its popular MedScape app to both the iPad and Android devices. Since its release, earlier last year, for the iPhone and BlackBerry devices, the Medscape Mobile app has registered over 700,000 healthcare professionals.